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For the New Year I was in Indonesia at Tuk Tuk on Samosir Island in Lake Toba, Sumatra. Shortly after the New Year I traveled back to Medan and then caught an over night bus up to Banda Aceh on the extreme northern coast of Sumatra. The Aceh province had a more extreme form of Islam than the rest of Indonesia and generally wanted its independence from the rule of Jakarta. Banda Aceh had a beautiful central mosque and a colorful central market, however, I had really traveled up to the province to go out to the island called Pulau Weh. From Banda Aceh's port of Krueng Raja it was a 2.5 hour sailing out to the idyllic tropical island which was famous for it's marine national park and diving.
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1996 Travel Diary (Part 1)

Gjcmcclurg
2005-12-23 14:40:13

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the hot springs at Simpang Beliq.

From Takengon it was a 10 hour journey down to Blankejeren, so we decided to break the journey in half and get off the bus in the tiny hamlet of Ise Ise. It was a beautiful location with a fast running river and dense rainforest all around. The bus pulled away and we eagerly looked for somewhere to stay. There was a reasonable looking losman, but strangely they said they were full even though it was obvious that they weren't. After a short while we realized why - the place was a brothel for a nearby military camp! Eventually I managed to negotiate with one of villagers for us to stay with them - we had little choice since the next bus out of Ise Ise was the following day. I was thankful that my Indonesian was up to it, otherwise we might have been sleeping rough for the night. One of the guys in the village had a baby Orangutan who seemed to think that I was it's father - I put it down to my coloring. Of course it was strictly illegal for people to keep baby Orangutans for pets, but Ise Ise didn't seem to need to abide by many of the rules.

After a couple of days we managed to get a ride out of Ise Ise and travel down to Blankejeren and on to Ketembe, where we wanted to organize a rafting trip on the Alas river. After a good deal of negotiating I managed to arrange an all inclusive 5 day rafting trip for US$60 per person, which was a good deal. The trip would take us down the Alas river through the huge Gunung Leuser National Park. Our guides, although very friendly, didn't seem to have much experience and on the first big rapid two of us were thrown out of the raft! A couple of nights we slept out under the stars on gravel beaches and for the other nights we slept in a tree houses, The scenery was magical varying from wide meandering sections of the river to canyons with class IV rapids, and all the time flanked by lush rainforest. Over the 5 days we traveled for approximately ...